Dr. LJ Slovin | School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria
Dr. Sam Stiegler | Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne
Thursday, April 17, 2025 | 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. (PST)
Hybrid | Scarfe, Room 1209
(attend via Zoom, or join us in Scarfe 1209). *Note: this seminar precedes the department meeting.
Host | Dr. Julia Sinclair-Palm
Director of the Robert Quartermain Centre for SOGI-Inclusive Excellence in Education, and Associate Professor of Teaching, Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education.
View the Seminar Poster
For Zoom details, please email edcp.educ@ubc.ca
Abstract:
Join us for the launch of two new books about queer and trans youth!
LJ Slovin’s book “Fierce, Fabulous and Fluid: How Trans High School Students Work at Gender Nonconformity” is based on a year-long ethnographic study conducted in a Canadian high school and presents a poignant critique of educational policies aimed at supporting trans and gender-nonconforming students. Author LJ Slovin observes the experiences of gender-nonconforming youth who were often overlooked in discussions about trans issues and draws on narratives about how these youth navigated their own identities within the education system. By sharing these stories, Slovin emphasizes the need for educators to move away from a focus on risk and concern and instead towards fostering a celebration of trans and gender-nonconforming youth. The book urges educators to cultivate a genuine desire to understand and support trans youth, paving the way for a brighter and queerer future within educational settings.
In “Going Along with Trans, Queer, and Non-Binary Youth,” Sam Stiegler recounts a series of mobile interviews-or “go-alongs”-with eleven transgender, queer, and non-binary youth to examine the everyday ways they navigated and made their lives in New York City. By telling the stories of how the go-alongs transpired and using detailed narrative description, Sam Stiegler shifts methodological attention to those parts of scholarly studies that often get left on the cutting room floor. The book foregrounds process, not just findings, reflecting on the complexities of embodying the position of researcher and what it was like to do research with these participants.
This book launch will take the form of a conversation between LJ Slovin, Sam Stiegler, and Julia Sinclair-Palm, the new Director of the Robert Quartermain Centre for SOGI‐Inclusive Excellence in Education, and Associate Professor of Teaching in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, in the Faculty of Education at UBC. This conversation invites questions about the ethics and best practices of doing research with queer and trans youth, explores the labour that young people engage in at school and in their communities, and examines the relationship between Childhood and Youth Studies, Trans Studies and Education. This event will also provide an opportunity to explore the role of SOGI-inclusive education in teacher education and in K-12 schools.
Short Bio(s):
Dr. Slovin is an Assistant Professor in School of Child and Youth Care at University of Victoria. LJ Slovin was a Vanier Scholar and earned their PhD in Curriculum Studies from Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. Slovin was the 2020 recipient of the Pat Clifford Award and was the Martha LA McCain Postdoctoral Fellow at the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto. Their work has been published in Curriculum Inquiry, Journal of LGBT Youth, Sex Education, and RERM.
Dr. Stiegler is a McKenzie Fellow in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne. Sam Stiegler earned his PhD in Curriculum Studies from Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia where he held the Vanier Canada Graduate Fellowship. He has also served as a Hunt-Simes Visiting Junior Chair of Sexuality Studies in the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre at the University of Sydney and has held academic appointments at Colgate University and Wesleyan University. Stiegler’s work has been published in a number of journals, including Curriculum Inquiry, Qualitative Inquiry, Equity and Excellence in Education, Journal of LGBT Youth, and The Journal of Homosexuality.
* The Faculty of Education and UBC seek to foster an environment in which respect, civility, diversity, opportunity and inclusion are valued.